A new report shows that Estevan was the only city in the province to not have an increase on the municipal share of property tax this year.
The document, provided to the Mercury by the City of Estevan, shows the other 13 cities in the province all had a property tax increase of at least two per cent. They range from two per cent for Humboldt to 4.4 per cent for Saskatoon.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said he was a little surprised to learn that every other city had a municipal property tax increase this year.
鈥淭hese are not only challenging times, but they鈥檙e challenging in quite a few areas of the province. We as council did what we thought was the right thing, and I鈥檓 sure the other cities thought that what they needed were the increases that they justified,鈥� said Ludwig.
While he didn鈥檛 have last year鈥檚 numbers available, Ludwig said he would suspect Estevan had one of the lowest increases in the province last year, too, when the property tax increase was one per cent.
鈥淲e had around the same numbers that we did this year across the province (for tax increases),鈥� said Ludwig.
The mayor believes city council made the right move in keeping municipal property taxes at the same level. It was the first time since 2006 that the city held the line on the municipal share of property tax.
The city had an eight per cent property tax increase in 2017, but only after the provincial government slashed the grants-in-lieu of property taxes for SaskEnergy and SaskPower. Estevan and other municipalities were forced to reopen their budgets, which they had already passed, to offset the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
鈥淲e feel that those types of increases are not sustainable. So we took a hard look the last few years, and we said we have to live within our means and kept the tax increases to the minimum.鈥�
Ludwig said city council has been working hard to reduce the long-term debt, which now stands at around $28 million, and the net debt, which is total assets versus total liabilities and is at about $18.8 million. The city鈥檚 management team has also worked hard to keep expenses in line and reduce the debt levels.
鈥淭hrough 小蓝视频 diligent and watching the monies that we spend, we鈥檝e managed to be successful on paying down our long-term debt,鈥� said Ludwig.
It鈥檚 too soon to say whether the low property tax increases will become the norm for the city, but Ludwig said they want to keep increases low.
鈥淓very year we look at the budget, and every year the management team and council works very hard to keep increases to the minimum.鈥�
